


The Chemistry of Attraction

by therune



Category: Dishonored (Video Games)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Gen, Humor
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-05-29
Updated: 2018-07-02
Packaged: 2019-05-15 17:30:13
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 3,338
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14794836
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/therune/pseuds/therune
Summary: dh-kinkmeme fill - https://dishonored-kinkmeme.dreamwidth.org/446.html?thread=429246#cmt429246Daud is a teacher, and is uncomfortable with the amount of attention his student(s) are giving him.Dunwall is a university, Daud teaches chemistry and has no dea what to do when he gains a fanclub





	1. Chapter 1

"Now, on the matter of oxidation and reduction reactions, read chapter 4 of the text book, until the paragraph about the kinetics of electron transfer, that will be the subject of next week's class."  
Several hands shoot up immediately.  
"Yes, Davison?"   
"Dr Sarantos, will this be on the test?"   
The owners of the other hands nod.  
He knew this was coming, every single week.  
"I believe that I handed out a sheet with all the relevant course information on the first day of class. Now, according to this, is oxidation relevant for the test?"  
It is.   
"Yes?" Davison tries.  
"Class dismissed," Daud answers. Students leave the room, and a small cluster goes to circle his desk. 

The faculty has a meeting with Dean Kaldwin in about 15 minutes, but he will make it in time for this one.   
Campbell from theology had teased him for days after the last one, despite Daud reminding him that they are the teachers and not students themselves. Some people apparently never grow out of that phase. 

He directs a polite smile at the first student, Cecilia.  
She has read ahead and found a formula that doesn't add up and asks for advice.   
It turns out to be the infamous printing error of the 3rd editon textbook. She grows red, seemingly embarrassed that she purchased an outdated version. Daud knows that she's on a scholarship and likely can't afford the newest version. Academia books are a huge scam, in his eyes, anyway.   
He quickly pulls up the publisher's site with the apology for the errors and prints it out for her. Cecilia accepts it flustered, and his smile grows kind. She's a good kid.   
Lydia and Callista just want him to know that they are going to be at the seminfinals for the debate team's ....whatever competition. He acknowledges it and tells them next week's assignment.   
The girls leave and that leaves him with Thomas and his gang.   
Which is odd since a) Thomas is usually the first one out of the door, and b) only one other member of his infamous gang actually studies chemistry.   
Nevertheless, they're here, 8 boys, aged 18-25, some shuffling their feet nervously.  
"What can I do for you, Thomas?" he asks.   
Thomas gives him a wide, toothy grin.  
"Actually, sir, we wondered, will you join the baseball game this weekend?"

Daud raises an eyebrow in surprise. The student-teacher game is something of a tradition at Dunwall U, mostly a friendly competition.   
He usually stays away, or hides behind a baseball cap and a huge cup of soda (and occasionally huge soda cup with wine inside) up in the rows. But since golden boy Attano has injured his left hand, Dean Kaldwin asked him to take over.   
"Just for one game," she pleaded. Daud had played when he was younger, had gotten a partial scholarship until he found his passion for the natural sciences. Then Emily, Kaldwin's daughter who seems to either live in the Dean's office or on Attano's desk, had said "please" with her big round eyes and he agreed.   
Some people had muttered, having been disappointed that their star Attano was out of comission, but after Daud's first homerun after 6 minutes in, they warmed up quickly. He had seen Dean Kaldwin and Attano, arm in a sling, Emily on his lap, cheering. Kaldwin and Attano weren't fooling anyone. Seriously.

"I hadn't planned on it actually, maybe if Professor Attano is still recovering..."  
"He is!" a boy chimes in, "I just saw him in literature history, his hand is all bandaged and shit."  
"I expected a more sophisticated language from a literature student," Daud says - suspecting the boy regularly attends Attano's classes and not for fun like some kids seem to do - and the boy mumbles an apology.   
"I guess I'll see," Daud supposes.  
Thomas and the others look like he just announced Santa was waiting outside the door.   
"Cool!"  
"So cool, Dr Sarantos," another boy affirms.  
Seemingly content, they leave.

Daud makes it in time for the meeting.   
He drones out the talk about finances and plays tic-tac-toe with Delilah from the arts department under their table.

They do ask him to step in for Attano again and he accepts.   
He almost forgot how nice baseball it is, he feels good. Similar to his workouts at the gym, but more energetic.   
During halftime he slumps down on the bench and dries his face with a towel.   
Their team is in the lead - unsurprisingly.   
"Sir, sir," someone says. It's Thomas and the others - Rulfio, Rinaldo, Zack, Leon, those names he has learned over the course of the week. They have taken to waiting for him to leave the lecture hall, asking questions about his baseball career, some questions vaguely related to chemistry (mostly if this or that will explode when set on fire) and once asked him to participate in a selfie.   
5 separate water bottles are offered to him.   
"You play awesome," Rulfio says.   
"Its awesomely," another boy adds.   
At least Attano has taught him what an adverb is.   
They make no motion to take the bottles back, so he accepts one with thanks.   
The boy whose bottle he took is ....way too delighted.   
"Good luck with the next half, sir."  
"Don't call me, sir," he replies automatically.  
"Sorry."

They win, of course.   
As he's walking off the field, he's lifiting the edge of his shirt to dab sweat away from his face.   
This time, it's 12 water bottles.  
"Billie," he admonishes his doctoral candidate who has joined the crowd.

 

Billie seems to spend a lot of time with Thomas and the gang. He has taken to calling them the 'gang' in his head, since he lost track of most of the names anyway.   
They're now regulars in his lectures, from the intro courses to the advanced things. There is no way they understand at all what he is talking about, since he is sure that only three actually study natural sciences.   
He mention his baseball fan club to Delilah, who laughs and pats his cheek. She advises him to ask Billie.  
And when he goes to their office to talk to Billie, she's not in. But she left her computer on, and her new desktop is a cellphone shot of some sportsman, a white baseball shirt gathered in his fist, obscuring the man's face, but revealing a toned six pack.   
It's only when he sits down at his desk and boots up his computer, that he realizes that those are *his* abs.

 

Daud still sits frozen like a statue at his desk when Billie comes back with two mugs in her hands. She slides one over to him.   
"Are you alright, Doc? You look like you forgot to lock up the closet with the dangerous.....you didn't forget to lock the closet with the dangerous chemicals? I knew it was a mistake to show a clip from that British show in my tutorial last week. How bad is it? Do I need to call the cops? Ambulance? Doc? Talk to me."  
"No, Billie, I-" quick, think of a lie, "I just got a mail from Burrows and you interrupted a rather vivid fantasy of me wringing his neck."  
"Oh. Okay."  
Neither of them like Burrows, the university's legal representative. But then, no one likes Burrows. Kaldwin needs him, because the man is a ruthless shark in the courtroom. But since he's also a ruthless shark out of the courtroom, no one spends more time with him than strictly necessary.   
"Thanks for the coffee."  
"Black with two sugars, just like you always take it."  
Daud sips and it's just perfect. Which is odd, since Billie never bothered to learn about his coffee preferences. When she feels generous and brings him coffee, she usually gets a second cup of whatever she's having. But coffee is coffee, and to any academic, caffeine in any form is vital. 

He goes over the lectures he has prepared for tomorrow, updates the time stamps on some assignments, and ignores 4 invites from Attano to Words with Friends.   
When all his work is done, he gives in and plays a few rounds with Attano. Despite being the faculty chief for Serkonian, with classes very popular an in high demand, Attano always has time for a few games.   
But apparently his recent bout of friendliness has been like blood in the water for the sharks he calls colleagues and so he spends 5 minutes clicking away invites to more social games than he can bother to remember.   
When Martin, Campbell's doctorate candidate, sends him a supposedly funny cat picture, he shuts down the computer. 

"Billie, do you have a second?"  
"Sure thing. What's up?"  
"Can you tell me what the hell is going on with those boys and you? I begin to feel like I'm being followed."  
Billie doesn't say anything. Then she asks "You haven't realized it?"  
"I wouldn't ask if I had."  
Then she laughs. And laughs.   
"If you're done having fun at my expense-"  
"Sorry, but you really don't see it? They're crushing on you, Daud."  
"What?!"  
"Every single one. Well, I think Rin's straight, but even he's got a little man crush going on."  
It's not the first time a student has had a crush on him. But the media and cheap TV series portray a wrong picture, it's not quite as common or acted upon as they would have make you believe. He ignores it if it happens, and that's it. He's never had to deal with a club of people before.  
"Are you sure? Billie, please."  
"Come on, it's sweet."  
"Sweet?"  
"For them you were the grouchy Doc - oh hush, you are the campus' resident grumpy grouch and you know it - and then you play basketball and suddenly they can see that under your labcoat, there are muscles. Abs. And a really great biceps. That's the male equivalent of a girl taking her glasses off and shaking her hair out."  
"Billie!"  
"You don't have to fear anything from me, you know I'm not interested in guys. But if I was...."  
"You're not helping."  
"What can I say, as a biochemist, I appreciate the human form. Especially-"  
"I will pay you not to finish that sentence."  
She gives him a look. "How do you normally deal with students having crushes on you?"  
"Ignore them."  
"Ah, classical Daud."  
"Do you have any sensible advice for me?"  
"Don't sleep with any of them."  
"Billie!"  
"Or maybe, you should, would do you a world of good."  
Billie continues to give him less than helfpul advice as he packs his things and goes to his car. Which is unnecessary and she does it just to make fun of him, since her motorbike is parked at the other side of the building (in the bike rack which is why she has gotten countless letters from security telling her to stop doing this exact thing). She is apparently in this to embarrass him and just for the hell of it. 

Daud drives home, tries to banish work and all related things from his mind. He ends up sitting on his balcony until 1am, smoking.

 

Daud's the first one to arrive at the campus.   
Or at least that is what he thinks as he enters the building for natural sciences. He hears voices angrily muttering and the coffee machine beeping. Not able to resist the lull of coffee, he decides to go to their staff room.   
"Ah, Daud, we thought you had gone home."  
It's Joplin and Sokolov, crowding the coffee machine.   
"It's morning," Daud replies and goes to fetch a mug.  
"Morning? Ha, it can't be - oh fiddlesticks, it is! Sokolov, you have class in 30 minutes!"  
"You have class in 30 minutes," Sokolov retorts.   
"What have you been doing all night?" Daud asks. Not that he's particularly interested, but if they misappropriated the spectrometer again, he has to know. He doesn't know what they want with that anyway, seeing as they're both physicists, but they both claim that as physicists they're studying the universe and since the universe contains everything, they study everything. Which explains why Sokolov gives an art class and Joplin tutors people in philosophy.   
"I have been working on my elixier, I don't know what that fool was doing."  
"And I," Joplin stresses the I, "have been working on my remedy: the perfect mix of electrolytes, whey protein and vitamins."  
"Mine incorporates l-carnitine, which we all know is the ideal ingedrient."  
"So, you've been making....sports drinks?" he guesses.  
"Sports drinks!" Sokolov scoffs. "I have created the ultimate formula for the ideal energy drink!"  
"No, I made the ideal formula - you copied my notes and got them wrong."  
"Me? You took my research and twisted it!"  
Thankfully his coffee is ready and Daud sneaks out of the room. 

Behind him he can hear the bickering continuing.He will ignore this It has worked in the past, it will work again. He is going to be 100% professional about this.   
He passes the corner, looks at his office door and barely resists the temptation of banging his head against the wall.  
Flowers. A bouquet of flowers, with some whites thrown in. There's even a little card.  
"I cannot put my feelings into words. These flowers will speak for me. Your secret admirer."

He rushes inside, stuffs the bouquet in his desk, takes it out, snaps a picture with his phone and shoves the flowers out of sight again. Billie would laugh until she tore something.   
Quickly he uses the picture to identify the flowers. Delilah would know what they mean. Which is why he will never ever tell her about this.   
Red carnations - affection. And the white things are angelica - he thinks. There's a reason he prefers chemistry.  
He reads the information on his phone and buries his head in his hands.  
"Angelica - No one has to know if we kiss."


	2. Chapter 2

The first thing Daud does after opening his door is to say “Hello Miss Emily” and give her a small smile – or whatever counts as a smile on his face anyway. The second thing is to scowl at Attano and firmly state “No.”  
“You don't even know what I was going to ask!” Attano protests while Emily, sitting on his shoulders, giggles.  
“I don't care,” Daud replies and tries to shut the door in Attano's face. Sadly, Attano knows him too well and has had his foot in the door since the beginning of their exchange.   
“The Fundraiser ball is in a month and-”  
“I'm not going.”  
“The Dean has stressed at the last meeting – which you attended, I saw you grading papers during it – how beneficial it would be if all the factulties sent representatives.”  
“Still don't care.” It's a surprise they want him there year after year. His track record is not exactly ideal.   
“And,” he spares a second to glare at Daud who keeps closing the door on Attano's foot, “she told me to remind you that in lieu of new research grants, the chem lab modernizations have to be paid for somehow.”  
It sucks, but that doesn't make it an less true. 

Their faculty is small – the physics department spearheaded by Sokolov and the biology department with Galviani have more space, staff and wealthy alumni. Plus, as grating as Sokolov can be, that man churns out scientific articles, breakthroughs and inventions like a well oiled machine, securing funding and even government contracts.  
All the while Daud has mainly Billie and some students, too many lectures and courses to teach and a half-finished textbook that finally holds up to his standards which he had meant to complete last year already. Billie is focused on her thesis – as she should be – and between the two of them, he can't dedicate any more time to other pursuits. 

“You know it's a necessary evil,” Attano begins, but Daud doesn't buy it. The languages department have no shortage of funds. Dean Kaldwin isn't showing her favoritism that blatantly, but Attano has always had backing from the Abele family. He had won the Verbena writing contest held by the family years ago, received a scholarship and they have kept in touch. They're from old money, ancestors getting rich with silver mines, investing that money well and now own probably half of Karnaca. Theodanis Abele is generous, especially with Attano.  
Plus, Attano's pretty face and charming demeanour are enough to secure support from the rich. 

Daud, on the other hand, is mostly allergic to people with more money than sense and also faking patience and politeness. It's self-sabotage to a degree, he knows that, but when he thinks of the Moray widow clutching his arm and calling him 'dearie'...   
It's due to his upbringing – growing up poor near Cullero, half-Pandyssian, raised by a single mother, loathed by most locals for their lack of money, skin color, his mother's accent – but he can't get out of his skin. He hasn't met any rich person who didn't look down on him for some reason, Jessamine Kaldwin being the sole exception, who values work over upbringing. Still, he feels out of place in high society, being something to be gawked at best and to detest at worst. Daud feels like they want him there even less than he wants to be there. 

Also, he'd think they'd banned him from those parties by now.  
The first time he brought a +1. He knew Lizzie Stride as a regular from his favorite bar. She's a cut-throat businesswoman with a thriving export empire and on the weekend the lead singer of the punk band Dead Eels. She's also his best friend and was persuaded by the promise of an open bar. Daud can't actually remember much of that particular night except for showing up at the police station at 3am to bail her out. After that, he wasn't allowed a +1 anymore. 

At the next party they had found out that Billie had a connection to the Abeles. Unluckily, it wasn't a scholarship but having beaten the younger son almost into a coma after it had been revealed that he'd been involved in the hit&run accident that almost killed Deirdre, Billie's now-wife. That explains Billie's sealed police file and why she gets to stay home during the next parties. It had taken considerable effort from Theodanis and half the university to smooth over those ruffled feathers. It's a pity, because the party with Billie had been fun until that point. 

Then he spent the last years holding a champagne flute in one hand, two purses in the other and listening to Delilah gossip with her wife Breanna. Breanna comes from such a family – stupidly rich and steeped in tradition – and has been disowned for refusing to marry the man her parents had picked out for her. Instead, she ran off with Delilah, the then starving artist. Now they're both successful and feel vindictive.  
That means that Breanna uses Daud and Delilah as moving showroom puppets to show off pieces from her new fashion collection and in return treats anyone approaching them with biting sarcasm and hints at dirty secrets. Daud doesn't particularly mind this arrangement, seeing as this has gotten him a front row seat to her ripping into Waverly Boyle.

But this year Delilah will be at the Conservatory for an important exhibition and so neither she or Breanna will attend. Already Campbell and Burrows have dropped hints that they would like Daud to join their table and he'd rather break his own arm and spend the night at the ER. 

“Mummy says that this year is important since Auntie Delilah can't come,” Emily interrupts his thoughts. Delilah is Jessamine's half-sister but Emily doesn't care about the relation, fiercely loving her anyway. She might just be the only person Delilah is kind towards. Emily has her way of disarming anyone she turns her charm on, as Daud can personally attest to. 

“Please?” she asks. 

Damn it.

“Fine.”

 

Daud wonders if he can smuggle in Lizzie.


End file.
